May 24, 2019

I am so excited to announce the rebrand of Tazuri Projects. 👋🏼🎉

Instead of continuously problematizing, I thought I should be part of the active conversation.

The goal of Tazuri Projects is still the same – is to spark further opportunities, discussions, and collaborations for more spaces to include artists of color in their programming in meaningful and genuine ways. We will continue to champion artists-of-color.

Don’t @ me if this isn’t for you – there are plenty of other spaces. I wish you all the blessings on your journey.

Cleansing my [digital] space with some bakhour

This is not about a negation of certain groups but rather providing a platform for artists at the intersection of certain gender, race, and identity with those who wish to actively support them.

In the second chapter of Algerian writer Assia Djebar’s novel Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade the narrator describes the first battles in the French conquest of Algeria in the 1800s. The narrator’s descriptions in this section are based on actual historical accounts. Djebar makes it a point to tell the reader where she gets her information. There were no written accounts of these first battles were left by Algerians – all of her information comes from two French colonial officials. The fact that a lot of colonial history comes down through the colonizers, those who actually wrote the records, not the colonized.

This feeds into the idea of the gallery’s tagline – you never had the full story. 💯

It’s an interest in overcoming those access points, that narrative, contextualizing the effects of those historical gatekeepers that Tazuri Projects is interested in expanding. Gatekeeping is going to be so interesting once people start really playing around with the potential of technology.

Tazuri Projects is a different kind of gallery space. We will exist primarily online, with the exception of temporary exhibitions and events. With a 70/30 cut between artist and us. It’s that transparent.

The platform has expanded to accommodate the truth that artists need rent and bread money too and figuring out ways on how to make that happen. Money is power. In the notorious words of the Wu-Tang Clan “cash rules everything around me.” We recognize the struggle.

Technology expands the idea of “access” through the magic that is the world wide web.

Tazuri Project is one example of the digital version of the folding chair Shirley Chisholm had to drag around her entire political career.

This is part of a growing community that celebrates diversity in the art world and more inclusivity across the board; but more importantly actively championing and focusing on those who for a long time were overlooked, undervalued, or as problematic, tokenized.